Born at Rémy, near Campièges; died in 1797 at Simamari in Guiana.
He commenced his career as a lawyer, became Procureur of the Parliament
of Paris, and eventually embraced the Revolutionary cause in 1789,
taking part in the attack on the Tuileries, August 10, 1792.
He became a member of the Convention by a trick. Another François
Louis Bourdon, to whom he was in no way related, was elected both by
the Department of l’Oise and also that of the Loiret as a Member of
the Convention. This Bourdon chose to represent the Loiret; and his
namesake, whom the electors had never seen, profiting by the similarity
of names, presented himself to the Convention, took his seat without
any difficulty, and held it without question.
He first distinguished himself by the ferocity of his utterances. He
voted for the death of Louis XVI. without an appeal to the people,
and denounced all the more moderate Deputies, such as Brissot, as
being Royalists at heart. He defended the Reign of Terror, violently
attacking the Abbé Grégoire for his desire to Christianise the
Revolution.
As he later showed signs of pity towards the Royal insurgents in La
Vendée, Robespierre and Hébert accused him of moderation, and caused
him to be excluded from the Jacobin Club. Bourdon, alarmed, threw
his influence in the scale against Robespierre in the Thermidor
_contra-Revolution_, and went so far as to suggest that every
Deputy who resisted the decree for Robespierre’s arrest should be shot
upon the spot. He was one of the escort that accompanied Robespierre
and his partisans to the scaffold.
From this time Bourdon declared himself the enemy of the Revolutionary
system, and the protector of priests and nobles. Nevertheless, when
sent to Chârtres to discover traces of those who were supposed to have
plotted against the Convention, Bourdon showed excessive and merciless
cruelty. He eventually became a Member of the Council of the Five
Hundred, and realised a large fortune by dealing in assignats and in
the national property.
The Directorate contained many of his mortal enemies, who inscribed his
name upon the list of those to be transported to Cayenne, and he was
arrested and deported; shortly after his arrival at Simamari Bourdon
expired, broken down by impotent rage, remorse and despair.